A wide variety of tools and techniques are known for making backup copies of data stored on a computer's disk(s), and for restoring that data to those disk(s) or to their replacement(s) on the computer. For instance, data may be copied from a permanently installed local hard disk onto a removable medium, such as a floppy, an Iomega ZIP brand drive, or a USB portable disk drive that is temporarily attached to the computer. Data may also be copied over a network or other communications link, e.g., to archive client data on a server, or to mirror data from one server to another server. Data may be copied a few files at a time, or it may be copied in larger amounts in a file-by-file image or a sector-by-sector image. Data may be copied in a single snapshot or other archive that matches the computer's storage contents at a given point in time, in which case the snapshot may be subsequently supplemented by incremental images, to update the snapshot so that it matches the state of the computer's storage at later times. Data in a remote copy may also be continuously updated by a mirroring process, so a secondary computer's storage is updated each time a sector of data is written to a corresponding primary computer's storage.
Often data is backed up simply as a precaution, so it can be restored if a hard drive fails or a virus corrupts it, for instance. If no disaster strikes, the backup copy is often not used. On occasion, data that has been backed up is also made available as a read-only copy. This can be done, for instance, using the V2i Protector product from PowerQuest Corporation, which provides a driver that lets users mount a sector-by-sector image file as a drive on a computer running a file system under a Microsoft Windows brand operating system. (V2I and V2I PROTECTOR are marks of PowerQuest Corporation). But in general, the data produced on one computer and then stored elsewhere as a backup is often simply stored and then left alone. The backup is rarely read, except to be restored to the computer on which it was originally produced. It is rarely written, except to be updated to match a more current active state of the computer that first produced it.
By contrast, the data that is produced on a computer and then stored on that same computer is often used there in a wide variety of ways. Data is produced on a computer, and also manipulated there, through many familiar applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, and web browsers, and by the underlying operating system, file system, and networking software.
In particular, many tools and techniques have been developed for use on a computer to manage the storage and other resources of that managed computer. Examples include tools for installing, patching, upgrading, and/or uninstalling software on the managed computer; tools for optimizing storage by defragmenting files, changing partition cluster size, or performing other operations; tools for manipulating partitions or volume segments by resizing, moving, copying, or merging them; tools for recovering data despite loss or corruption of file system information; and tools for converting one file system type to another, such as converting between a FAT file system and a Microsoft NT brand file system.
PowerQuest Corporation provides many such resource management tools, as discussed at www.powerquest.com. The following United States Patents assigned to PowerQuest Corporation contain additional discussion of these and other tools and techniques for managing computer resources: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,675,769, 5,706,472, 5,930,831, 5,933,647, 6,08,8778, 6,108,697, 6,108,759, 6,11,7188, 6,173,291, 6,178,487, 6,178,503, 6,185,575, 6,185,666, 6,253,300, 6,330,653, 6,377,958, 6,453,383, 6,530,077. Some of these patents discuss both modifying data to manage storage on a computer and sending data over a network to the computer, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,300 on “Computer partition manipulation during imaging” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,647 on “System and method for software distribution and desktop management in a computer network environment”. U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,653 discusses manipulation of virtual and live computer storage device partitions, including remote partition manipulation over a network. Other remote control software is also available, to control execution of software on one computer through a command interface on another computer. PowerQuest also owns U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/532,223 filed Mar. 22, 2000, which is on “Storing a computer disk image within an imaged partition”.
Other examples of tools and techniques used on a computer to manage the storage and other resources of that managed computer include antivirus software; and software for monitoring storage usage, blocking storage of files that exceed maximum allocated space quotas or belong to an illegal file type, determining billing for storage usage, and enforcing standardized storage locations for particular types of data. Such software is sometimes referred to as “storage resource management” or “SRM” software. Agents placed on a client computer gather information about the client computer's storage usage, hardware configuration, operating system configuration, software versions, and application software usage, for example, and send that information over a network to an administrative server. Commands are then issued from the administrative server back to the client agents, in response to administrator commands and/or policies, to be executed by the agents on the client computers.
Software for asset management or inventory control is also known. Such software gathers information about computing assets or resources, such as server and workstation hardware, system configuration, and software, including which applications are installed. Such asset management software may be considered an example of SRM software. It may have capabilities such as the conditional deployment of software upgrades or patches based on comparison of the actual configuration of a target computer and a desired configuration for that target; application usage tracking; and remote control of operations performed on a computer to manage the computer's resources.
In short, and with the benefit of hindsight gained from knowledge of the present invention, although many tools are used to manipulate data while that data is stored on the same computer that produced it, and many tools are used to make copies of data and send them to another computer, relatively little has been done to make use at a network management computer of information provided there in a backup copy of another computer's stored data. As discussed below, the present invention provides ways for disassociated backup information to be organized and put to many uses, instead of merely keeping such backups as a precaution against disaster or as a read-only copy shared by several individuals.